Utilization of oral antidiabetic medications in Taiwan following strategies to promote access to medicines for chronic diseases in community pharmacies

Table 3 Estimated changes (with 95% confidence interval _a. ) in use of oral antidiabetic products following the 2006 five-year chronic medication prescriptions promotion strategy

	Intercept	Baseline trend	Level change	Trend change	Absolute change (1 year later)	Relative change (1 year later)	Absolute change (3 years later)	Relative change (3 years later)
Rate of chronic medication prescriptions for diabetes _b.	0.0100	0.0080 (0.00069, 0.0091)	0.0312 (0.0119, 0.0505)	-0.0046 (-0.0063, -0.0029)	1.28% (-0.68%, 3.24%)	6.08% (-3.62%, 15.78%)	-2.38% (-4.98%, 0.22%)	-8.65% (-17.35%, 0.05%)
Share of prescriptions filled at community pharmacies _c.	0.0200	0.0063 (0.0053, 0.0073)		0.0024 (0.0005, 0.0043)	0.97% (0.22%, 1.73%)	5.49% (0.79%, 10.19%)	2.92% (0.66%, 5.19%)	12.82% (1.66%, 23.98%)
Share of reimbursed expenditures accounted by community pharmacies _d.	0.0173	0.0063 (0.0047, 0.0079)		0.002965 (0.0002, 0.0057)	1.19% (0.08%, 2.30%)	6.80% (-0.45%, 14.05%)	3.56% (0.23%, 6.89%)	15.83% (-1.35%, 33.02%)

a. 95% CI = estimate +/- (1.96*se); All terms p < 0.05 retained in models.
b. Rate of chronic medication prescriptions for diabetes = annual number of chronic medication prescriptions for diabetes/annual number of diabetic outpatient visits.
c. Share of prescriptions filled at community pharmacies = aggregated annual volume (DDDs) of prescription filled at community pharmacies/aggregated annual volume (DDDs) of prescription filled at both hospital and community pharmacies.
d. Share of reimbursed expenditures accounted by community pharmacies = aggregated annual reimbursed expenditures accounted by community pharmacies/aggregated annual reimbursed expenditures accounted by both hospital and community pharmacies.

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